Sjani and the City

As of today, I only know this much of Cantonese:

"Wai" - I suppose this means "hello" as this is the most common word I heard when people take their phone calls

"Po fei lo" - Is the street name in Chinese where our apartment building is standing. In English it is called "Pokfield Road", so seems like "Po fei lo" is the simplified, adjusted-to-Chinese-tongue format of it. Cute isn’t it? :)

"Hon lam hin" - This is how you call our apartment building "University Heights" in Cantonese. Don’t ask me why, as this might be a different case than "Po fei lo". Gotta ask my friend, the security guard, whether he can explain to me where "Hon lam hin" came from.

"Yau lok, mgoi" - Means "stop please". Comes very handy when you’re taking those public light buses

"Mgoi" - Means "please" but also means "thank you" when you thank someone who just gave you some kind of service. For thanking someone for a gift you’ll have to use another word which I haven’t learnt so far :D

"Sai po sing" - Means "The Westwood", which is the name of a big mall near to Chris’ office which I have to mention to the cab driver when I go to meet Chris for lunch.

I guess that’s about it. So not really much of a progress in the last six weeks :(

It’s been like ages since the last time I wrote here. I’ve been sort of perplexed, caught between some kind of culture shock, craving to fill up the apartment as soon as possible and wanting to enjoy HK more. Anyway I’ve put myself together and decide to go back here writing.

In between I’ve gained more and more new experiences in the new home. I commute around using public transportation with a bit more self confidence now. I admit, I still bring my bilingual city map everywhere with me though, just in case. The good thing is, I start to be able to arrange how to travel around the most convenient way, how to for example avoid to walk up the thousand stairs from KT back to our apartment at the hillside. This conveniency costs me 2,9 HKD though, however with a chance to practice my Cantonese "Yau lok, m goi!" in real life setting. So it is like a win-win situation here. Click here for picture of my favorite public transport lately.

To you all vintage fans, let me introduce you today to the one and only Hong Kong tram. Good for sightseeing purpose when you’re not in a hurry. It’s inexpensive, fun and no aircon, thank God! Don’t be surprised if the tram is mostly full, especially along the route from Causeway Bay to Kennedy Town, as you’ll find lots of passengers with different reasons taking this tram: locals who want to save some money, locals who have time and not in a hurry and tourists who have "HK tram riding" on their must-do-in-HK list.

After visiting almost half of all the curtain shops in HK (OK, I admit, I’m exaggerating here a bit) I finally decided to give our living room some warmth with this shimmering red curtain. Purposely it is transparent, so we will never miss out the nice city view from the balcony window, especially when it gets dark outside. During daytime the room might be a little bit too bright though. Have to find a solution and to get it done before summer. Now it is still acceptable since the weather is mostly cloudy anyway.

Pictures of the curtain’s evening look and daytime look.